Couple arrested, charged in 'Baby Grace' case
By HARVEY RICE, Hearst Newspapers
11/26/2007



GALVESTON - Galveston County sheriff's deputies have arrested the mother of a 2-year-old girl tentatively identified as Baby Grace, whose body was discovered in a plastic box on a sand bar in West Galveston Bay.

Kimberly Dawn Trenor, 19, and her husband, Royce Clyde Zeigler II, 24, both of Spring, are charged with injury to a child and tampering with evidence, said Galveston County Sheriff's Office spokesman Maj. Ray Tuttoilmondo.

"Investigators believe Baby Grace is actually 2-year-old Riley Ann Sawyers," Trenor's daughter, the sheriff's office said in a statement issued Sunday. "They have not yet made a positive identification as DNA analysis is still in process."

Trenor and Zeigler were being held in the Galveston County Jail on $350,000 bail following their arrest Saturday.

The arrests and search of the couple's home were the result of an investigation stemming from a Nov. 7 tip, the statement said.

Sheriff's detectives and FBI agents were interviewing several people Sunday as part of the investigation, according to the statement.

"There is still a tremendous amount of investigation that needs to be done," Tuttoilmondo said.

Riley was one of eight missing children whose families were asked to provide DNA samples last week.

Riley's father, Robert Sawyers, of Mentor, Ohio, gave DNA samples Wednesday that will be matched with Baby Grace's DNA. Tuttoilmondo declined to say whether Trenor gave DNA samples.

Baby's Grace's DNA results were expected to be ready early this week, but it will take two to three weeks to analyze the samples from Sawyers, Tuttoilmondo has said.

Kimberly Trenor's father, Randolph Trenor of Mentor, Ohio, doubted that his daughter could have harmed her child. "She's not the type of person who would do something like that." Trenor said.

A relative at the Mentor, Ohio, home of Riley's grandmother, Sheryl Sawyers, said the family had been advised by the FBI not to speak with the media and referred all questions to an attorney, who did not immediately return calls.

Robert Sawyers also did not immediately return phone calls.

In an interview last week, Sheryl Sawyers, 47, said she phoned investigators after seeing an artist's sketch of Baby Grace on the Internet soon after the body was discovered Oct. 29.

Kimberly Trenor told investigators that an Ohio protective services official had taken the child, according to Sheryl Sawyers. The grandmother said she did not believe that an Ohio official would travel to Texas, where they have no juridiction.

Texas CPS spokeswoman Gwen Carter said the agency has no records of any interaction with Trenor, Zeigler or any complaints at their address.

"But it sounds like the child disappeared just after moving here and we don't believe that there are any other children in the family," Carter said.

Sheryl Sawyers said she last saw Kimberly Trenor on June 6 at an Ohio hearing to enforce visitation rights for her son, Robert Sawyers.

They were unaware then that Trenor had married Zeigler on June 1 and moved to Texas.

Kimberly Trenor, who turned 19 in August, was 16 when she gave birth to Riley and moved in with the Sawyers. "I treated her like my daughter," Sheryl Sawyers said.

Trenor was 18 when she and Riley moved into her own house in May this year, Sheryl Sawyers said.

After moving into the house in Mentor, Trenor met Zeigler on the Internet while playing an online game, World of Warcraft, Sheryl Sawyers said. They spoke for hours on the phone and Zeigler sent her a diamond necklace.

Zeigler told her that he was a project manager for Shell Oil who traveled around the country, according to Sheryl Sawyers.

Sheryl Sawyers disapproved of the Internet romance, causing a rift in her relationship with Trenor. "I said, if you want to be foolish with your own life, that's one thing, but think about your 2-year-old daughter."

A court order prevented Trenor and Robert Sawyers from being together, Sheryl Sawyers said, so she was designated to pick up Riley on her son's visitation days. She said Trenor never made Riley available for visitation.

The Sawyers discovered through their attorney in July that Riley's mother was living in Texas.

After Baby Grace's body was discovered last month, Sheryl Sawyers saw an artist's rendering on the Internet and phoned the Galveston County Sheriff's Office.

"Could gomebody go check to see and that she's OK?" she asked. "Then I get the call saying that she says she doesn't have the baby."

The FBI last week offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the identity of Baby Grace. Normally rewards are only offered for information leading to an arrest and conviction.

The story of Baby Grace tugged at the hearts of law enforcement officers and the community. Texas EquuSearch erected a 4-foot wooden cross Nov. 4 near the site where the body was found bearing the words, "In loving Memory of Baby Grace."



Source: http://www.southeasttexaslive.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19057348&BRD=2287&PAG=461&dept_id=512588&rfi=6

WOW or not. People who do this type of thing make me wonder an eye for an eye isnt a better punishment....i would ziptie both of those worthless human beings...in the desert...then come back in a week or so..even animals don't do this to their offspring..

Experts: Don't blame Warcraft for 'Baby Grace'


By EYDER PERALTA
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle


Indirectly, at least, the 2-year-old girl found dead in a box in Galveston Bay came to Texas because of an online video game. Her mother moved with the girl from Ohio to Texas after meeting a fellow player in the adventure fantasy World of Warcraft.

But experts say people should avoid the temptation to blame Warcraft for the death of 2-year-old Riley Ann Sawyers, better known to the country as "Baby Grace."

"We have to be cautious and not think everyone online is crazy," said Celia Pearce, a professor at Georgia Tech's Experimental Games Lab who studies the fast-growing "massively multiplayer online role-playing games" that are getting more mainstream attention — not all of it positive.

Dan O'Halloran, lead writer for the Warcraft news Web site WoWinsider.com, said meeting in a gaming environment is no different from meeting someone on MySpace.com or in an Internet chat room. But he and others say that meetings "in game" are increasingly leading to real-world relationships.

Described by O'Halloran as a "fantasy adventure game," World of Warcraft started three years ago and has 9.5 million subscribers, making it by far the largest MMORPG out there.

In simple terms, the game is about attaining power. A character goes on quests to acquire equipment, which makes the role-player more powerful. The player progresses, his or her level rises.

"World of Warcraft is uniquely designed to be easy to learn but difficult to master," Frank Pearce, Blizzard Entertainment's senior vice president of product development and no relation to Celia Pearce, told the Chronicle last year. "It keeps you up all night trying to get that extra level."

The game has garnered negative attention in the past. In 2005, a South Korean teenager died of exhaustion after playing for 50 consecutive hours. That same year, a South Korean couple left their baby alone while they played Warcraft at an Internet cafe. The baby suffocated in the crib.

But, said Celia Pearce, "With about 10 million players, and only two willing to do what these two did, it's not a meaningful percentage."

Pearce herself plays World of Warcraft. She calls it "communities at play" and she's had experience with groups of people — one a blood-related family and another online family — who stay together, not only on Warcraft, but on other MMOs. Some people have met and married, virtually, in the game and then gone on to marry in real life.

She thinks meeting in a game is different from meeting in a chat room or meeting on a dating site such as match.com.

"In a chat, there's no context," she said. "There is nothing to talk about. But when you are playing a game (whether that's) bridge or mahjong or World of Warcraft, you learn about people through their playing styles."

She also compares games such as Warcraft to events such as the Renaissance Festival or Mardi Gras, where people wear costumes and try on different personas.

More and more, she said, people are meeting in-game. But the question remains: Is it any different from meeting someone at a bar? Pearce thinks no.

But relationships, at least anecdotally, appear to progress more quickly, and it's anybody's guess as to how that affects the real world.